SportsNews
Supercars Bathurst 1000: Payne fastest in dramatic qualifying
Matt Payne took provisional pole position for the Bathurst 1000 after a qualifying session of fine margins at Mount Panorama.
Payne and his Grove Racing Ford streaked around the 6.213km circuit in a time of 2m05.6452s to edge out fellow Mustang pilot Cameron Waters by a scant 0.0060s.
“It just seemed to hook up really nicely and it just seemed to turn really well at ‘The Grate’,” he explained after the lap.
“The previous practice we did not have such a good run on green tyres. I knew the car was better than that. I knew we were going to be in the top five, but P1 is pretty cool.”
Read Also:
Payne fastest in dramatic Bathurst 1000 qualifying
GEN3 Toyota ‘Supracar’ displayed at Bathurst
Waters, who nearly had a crash at Forrest’s Elbow during the session, revealed he had also suffered a reliability scare in the early stages.
“It was a pretty intense session, I had an engine problem to start with and that cleared,” he said.
“Everyone is trying so hard, even in practice one, it was crazy how fast everyone was going. I am just lucky I am not one of the ones crashing.”
The session featured a pair of red flags, with the first coming with 23 minutes remaining on the clock as David Reynolds lost control of the rear of his Team18 Chevrolet Camaro at The Dipper, collecting the wall where team-mate Warren Luff had performed a miraculous escape earlier in the weekend.
David Reynolds, Team 18 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1
© Autosport.com
David Reynolds, Team 18 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1
Photo by: Edge Photographics
The second came due to a crash at the same corner after Shell V-Power Racing driver Will Davison destroyed all four corners of his Ford Mustang on his final push.
This crash ruined Broc Feeney’s attempt to top the session, although he remained the highest-placed Chevrolet driver in third. Prior to the red flags being displayed, he had been 0.25s up on Payne’s benchmark.
The Triple Eight man was 0.0081s faster than 2023 polesitter Brodie Kostecki, who set the fourth fastest time and clattered the wall at Sulman Park, requiring a mid-session suspension change which cost eight minutes of track time.
Highlighting how close the session was, Kostecki’s time was 0.0194s away from Payne.
Championship leader Will Brown secured his shootout position in fifth, having spent the majority of the session out of the window, while Chaz Mostert was sixth.
Andre Heimgartner, Jack Le Broc, Anton de Pasquale and Richie Stanaway rounded out those who will contest Saturday’s shootout.
As a result of causing the red flags, both Reynolds and Davison saw their best times struck from the record, leaving them 21st and 16th respectively.
The Supercars will be back on track at 10:05am Australian Eastern Daylight Saving Time [12:05am BST], with a one-hour practice session for co-drivers only. There will be another hour’s practice at 1:10pm [3:10am BST] and the top 10 shootout is due to begin at 5:05pm [7:05am BST].
SportsNews
Three brand new branded buses for Heartland Football Club of Owerri have arrived at the State House, Government House Owerri, and are set to be handed over to the teams. Both the men’s and women’s teams will benefit from this.
Three brand new branded buses for Heartland Football Club of Owerri have arrived at the State House, Government House Owerri, and are set to be handed over to the teams.
Both the men’s and women’s teams will benefit from this.
AN.
December 20, 2024.
While Formula 1 continues to make good gains in improving its sustainability, one of the most obvious areas of wastage clearly still needs addressing.
With the quest to reduce environmental impact being all about marginal gains rather than delivering a silver bullet solution, it is quite remarkable that F1 finds itself left with so many unused tyres over the course of a season.
The reality of this situation emerged in an info document that Pirelli sent out on Thursday detailing some interesting stats from the 2024 season – which included the fact that F1’s tyres cumulatively covered a distance of 334,942.175 kilometres over 65,534 laps.
Tucked away amid the data were some interesting numbers related to the number of sets delivered – and especially how many ended up not being called into action at all.
Pirelli says it supplied teams will a total of 8016 new sets in 2024 – which was divided up into 6100 sets of slicks and 1916 of wet weather rubber (1428 inters and 488 wets). Of this total, 2718 sets were never used – which is around 34% of the entire supply.
Some of these were rain tyres that were never required, but there were a fair few slicks that also never saw the light of day.
Photo by: Erik Junius
Pirelli says that 935 sets of slicks – just more than 15% of the total taken to races – were fitted to rims and never left the garage.
Furthermore, 948 sets of slicks (15.5%) completed between just one and three laps – being used either just for qualifying or in quali sims in practice.
The number of totally unused tyres is quite eye-opening when put in the context of all these tyres effectively being wasted resources on two fronts.
First, there is the question of effort and materials, in terms of manufacturing and then needing to destroy and recycle these sets.
Then beyond that there are transportation considerations to take into account too based on flying this rubber all the way around the world for nothing.
It is little wonder that Pirelli itself noted in its document: “The issue of more efficient tyre usage during the race weekend remains on the table.”
Finding a solution
The issue of wasted tyres is something that Pirelli has been pushing hard on in recent years, and improvements have already been made for 2024.
This came through the use of a ‘strip and fit’ policy for extremes and inters – meaning that tyres that were mounted at one race could be stripped and refitted for the following. This meant that around 3500 fewer tyres needed to be produced last year compared to 2023.
A trolley of Pirelli tyres
© Autosport.com
A trolley of Pirelli tyres
Photo by: Lionel Ng / Motorsport Images
Reality means that it will be impossible for F1 to ever end up in a situation where there are no wasted tyres, but it is clear more can be done.
On the rain tyre element, consideration could be given to shifting F1 to just having a single type of wet tyre.
It is pretty obvious in F1 right now that the current performance dynamics of the inter and the extreme trigger a scenario where there is a lot of wastage.
The extreme is designed to resolve problems of aquaplaning in really bad conditions – but the tyre is so rarely used because, by throwing up so much water along with the diffuser, cars never run in such terrible weather.
Pirelli’s 2024 data highlights the problem. Intermediates were used for a total of 5.84% of the entire distance covered by teams; the extreme was just 0.57%.
Having a single wet tyre to cope with the range of conditions that run from damp to the point where cars no longer race would be an easy win for cutting back on tyre production. On the slick issue, it is inevitable that there will be some sets that are only used for three laps or so because of qualifying.
Sets of Medium and Hard Pirelli tyres used by McLaren
© Autosport.com
Sets of Medium and Hard Pirelli tyres used by McLaren
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
However, reducing the number of tyres unused totally could be achieved through different sporting regulations, perhaps forcing teams to use specific compounds in certain sessions.
F1 trialled the Alternative Tyre Allocation (ATA) at two races in 2023 – reducing the number of sets given to each driver down from 13 to 11. The rules forced drivers to use hard tyres in Q1, mediums in Q2 and softs in Q3.
But the idea did not get the support needed from teams to become the norm from the start of this year. There were concerns that the ATA limited running in practice too much and it handed an advantage to the quickest teams who were better on the harder compounds in qualifying.
The ATA was ruled out for adoption and the idea of a reduced allocation has since fallen away from the spotlight.
Pirelli felt that this was a missed opportunity. As head of F1 and car racing Mario Isola said at the time: “The decision to drop this format, for me, was not the right one.
“I believe that if the direction for the future is to reduce the championship’s carbon footprint, we have to accept to lose something.”
And as Pirelli’s latest numbers show, this is a topic that definitely needs some fresh attention.
Read Also:
Anambra State Govt. Rescues 13 Children From Traffickers, Arrests Suspects
Stampedes reflect Nigeria’s systemic failures -Peter Obi
IGP WARNS AGAINST UNORGANIZED DISTRIBUTION OF PALLIATIVES, FUNFAIRS. As 2 Other Incidences Hit FCT, Anambra.
-
Politics10 months ago
Nigerian Senate passes Bill seeking the establishment of the South East Development Commission.
-
Business10 months agoInflation hits record high of 29.90% on naira weakness
-
Politics7 months agoBREAKING: Federal Gov’t Offers To Pay Above N60,000, Reaches Agreement With Labour
-
SportsNews10 months agoOlympic Qualifiers 2024: CAF Confirms Dates For Super Falcons Vs Banyana Banyana
-
Politics10 months agoGovernor Hope Uzodinma’s New Cabinet In Imo: The Gainers, The Losers
-
Entertainment10 months ago
American Singer Beyonce makes history as first Black woman to top country chart
-
Politics7 months agoBREAKING: Organized Labour suspends strike for one week.
-
Business10 months ago
Reasons we cannot sell cement below N7,000, by Dangote, Bua, Lafarge